Niche Sports Are No Longer an Ivy League Admissions Plan - The Atlantic
The article references kids from Fairfield County Connecticut. I knew a lot of people like this 
Too many pieces of this article made me laugh.
The article is extremely inaccurate. Describing Lacrosse as a “niche” sport is nonsensical because it is no longer a niche sport at the youth and NCAA level. There are almost two million kids playing Lacrosse. It is now almost impossible to be a cross-over athlete and warm the bench at a power house. If you look at the numbers of schools that offer lacrosse across the profile of the NCAA it’s approaching full mainstream, especially for women.
Men’s Lacrosse Programs by Division
I: 74
II: 75
III: 248
Women’s Lacrosse Programs by Division
I: 117
II: 114
III: 293
Junior College Lacrosse Programs
M: 21
F: 11
Collegiate Club Programs
MCLA: 184
WCLA: 225
Now, if the author had said “Rugby” was part of that, I could totally be like…yup niche sports woo. There are only 22 Women’s Varsity Rugby programs as part of the emerging sports initiative and the Ivy Conference contributes 6 programs to that.
I did a speed read through the article and it is a reminder of how crazy it is to emphasize sport in the context of University enducations. I understand the US collegiate athletic system reasonably well but it is kind of crazy how the emphasis shifts so substantially to athletics over academics both for students and parents (before they get in). The European systems of advancing your atthletic career through the club system seems to be a much better path for society in general. Here in Canada, while we have varsity athletics, most sports you just walk on and make the team, and there are no scholarships tied to them and you get into the school because of your academic standing. Also you can go to any university across the country and get a fairly balanced education. Some universities are better for some programs than others, but its not like it’s “Ivy League and you life is made, or going to a school in the armpit of the country and your life is toast”. But you can get in on academics only.
Kids taking up sport because their parents think they can get into a better school and then both parents and kids hating the process seems like exactly the wrong reason to enter sport. Its sad if there are a bunch of people who get into rowing, or the other example (waterpolo) given in the article. These are great sports just for the sake of doing them, not to get into a special university.
Dev, that’s not really the case for many sports governed by USport (your NCAA). Things like Football and Basketball require the athlete to be recruited. It’s not as insane as things get down here, but it’s not simply about walking on and making the team.
No its not even remotely in the same boat. You can still make lots of college football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, hockey teams (and much more), just getting into the university on your academic standing and show up for try outs. Canadian university sport is pretty bush league compared to US college machinery. No one here runs around shuttling their kids through youth sports in hope of some college sport glory. If parents are shuttling kids around sport, they may be delusional about their kids making pro sport (and there are plenty of delusional parents whose kids I also coached), but its by no means with some hope to get into a better university (almost no one takes up rowing or cross country or swimming because they are going to get into University of Toronto and zero foor sure to go to U of Waterloo {the premier national engineering school which Google and facebook are constantly raiding})